


Not Writ In The Stars

by Coldest_Fire



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Au where Spike was Sired First, Dru has way less trauma than canon, F/M, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Future Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Violence, Potential warning for violence in visions, Rating May Change, Stalking, Warnings May Change, in a vision that doesn't happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:16:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldest_Fire/pseuds/Coldest_Fire
Summary: What if Spike was sired before Drusilla, and decided to defy the stars as they'd spelled her fate, and stop Angelus? If instead, she'd had a dashing, if cagey suitor--the poet and the vampire, on whom her entire future hangs.“I’m at the wrong occasion,” she said to herself, seemingly baffled, looking at him as though he was a particularly cryptic line of poetry and she couldn’t pass what he meant for the story. “You aren’t the name writ in the stars tonight?”“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Drusilla,” he said, taking a small bow, and wondering if people still did that in 1860. She returned the gesture slowly, her eyes staying on him. He felt as though her eyes could see through his skin, to find what was missing—the soul. “And my immense relief that when I found the courage to deny the stars, I could find you here,” he suggested, “may I come in?”
Relationships: Drusilla/Spike (BtVS)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Not Writ In The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> whooo look at me starting a new WIP. No notes except to warn you that my historical knowledge is from majoring in English--there might be anachronisms, but I'm doing my best! In this fic,Spike was sired in the late 1700's/early 1800's, and Dru is older than she was. IIRC she was 19 when she died, but she's 18-19 in this fic, entirely because she needed ot be older to take William (died early 20's) as a suitor.

_They were talking too loud_.

Spike didn’t understand why he stuck around here—it was harder not having other vampires to hide behind the times he got a little brazen. Sometimes anything was better than being alone, however much Angelus made him doubt that. Darla was occasionally company of some kind, even if company from her skewed into _not_ talking more often than not. Spike was, in the end, alone anyway. The last real conversation he’d had was with a woman dying of consumption who had wanted him to drain her before she died a slower, more painful way. It was out of the question to go into the living room to seek it out.

He was _on_ about the girl again.

Spike had tried early on to get in his way—before this girl, and he had the scars to show for it. Darla had sired him to piss Angelus off, she hadn’t intended him to survive this long, he expected.

That was why Spike was _not_ listening. He couldn’t get involved in this if he wanted to live.

Unfortunately for him, the walls were thin. He was talking about his magnum out, while Darla complained that they’d been in London for years, and kept far lower of a profile than she preferred to—this was much below her standard of living. Spike thought if she was unhappy, maybe she shouldn’t have started it all in the first place. She was enjoying herself well enough for the first year or so, before she got bored of the buildup.

It started with some seer, who had developed her gift young. He couldn’t recall how old when Darla discovered her. Angelus was immediately _obsessed_ with her. He’d watched her for hours, determining what mattered to her—her family, her faith, and protecting the others in her little neighbourhood. He’d started by extensively planning every time he was going to kill someone, and seeing what she did to obstruct him. How much she would see was important, and how much danger she undertook.

He saw her, in the moonlight once. Outside to face a monster. He was going to kill a young girl from the church. She’d insistently walked her home—put her body between them. A martyr. Angelus let her have that one. Then he killed the girl the following night, and left the same hand on her doorstep.

Cat and mouse. Spike had hoped it was going to end there. It hadn’t. It had escalated into him killing a priest to tell her she was damned. Leaving bodies near the church. Making sure she felt like the devil was always behind her. Spike knew where it would end: killing her family, and seeing where she went. He hoped that it was a convent, which got a laugh out of Darla—he had a particularly unpleasant fetish for nuns, which she humoured, enjoyed even. She liked the bloodshed, but the nuns bored her, and didn’t have pretty things she could keep. It was a running argument between them.

He didn’t plan to touch her until he’d killed those who protected her at least twice. Not until she broke, he insisted. He was describing what came after to Darla right now—he was careful to plan every detail of how he’d torture her—didn’t want the poor seer to miss a thing. Hearing that was bad enough, Spike couldn’t imagine seeing it. But, of course, if he didn’t hear, he didn’t have to imagine. He avoided her neighbourhood—not hard because it was pretty obvious by how ofter the other vampires in his life were in one middle class district. 

There was a whimper from the living room, and “please, please I’ll do _anything.”_ And Spike cringed. A demonstration. He was trying to get Darla interested again—the bloodshed usually did the trick. She was as vicious as he was.

The plea didn’t save her. A scam rang out. Spike would not think about the fact that this was happening, nor that this was a rehearsal for what he planned to do. It started the following night. Her family was to die then, which started it all in motion.

He didn’t know how long he’d sat in his room, reading insistently, when he heard another plea for help. Her voice was ragged. He couldn’t imagine—couldn’t but was imagining what was going on one thin wall away. Who had he become?

He got up, opened the door, and walked into the living room. The girl was slumped back in Angelus’ lap, dress hanging off her in shreds. Spike couldn’t be sure how badly hurt—there was a lot of blood. He knew them well enough to know some of it might have been from them killing whoever she’d been out with, this late at night. “Least you can do if you’re going to be so bloody loud is share,” he insisted, “you’re going to get enough of a feast tomorrow, from what I hear. At least, if you’re _finally_ doing it this time.”

Angelus looked to Darla, as though asking her if she wanted a drink. Spike knew her response. If the woman wasn’t worth taking the dress from, she wouldn’t be to Darla’s standards. As expected, Darla shrugged, “I’m not drinking that,” she looked at Angelus, “Let Willy clean up the mess. You’re more fun when you’re hungry.”

Spike barely caught the girl as Angelus did as he was told. He had to be excited if he wasn’t at least protesting her a token amount. Spike almost regretted no knowing—it felt like the world was about to change, even if he’d never see it. Once they were out of the room, he looked at the girl, dark haired, with blue eyes. Young. Almost like Angelus described _her._ “I’m sorry, love,” he whispered to her, steadying her against his chest. “It’s over now. It’s not going to hurt anymore.”

She relaxed into his chest, body still trembling. She mumbled thanks into his chest. Mumbled about how much it hurt. He snapped her neck, the crack resounding through the room. Drank her, because he wasn’t going to waste blood—it meant he didn’t have to go find a meal. He then grabbed the clothing that Darla had taken off a recent lover, and/or snack. She’d kept them in case she needed either Angelus or Spike to accompany her to anything, or maybe just because she wanted them better dressed.

It was a little tight, but more importantly, it looked modern—better than his own clothes. The tight pants that were normal in his day would have seemed perverse. He was thankful that Darla liked to eat the upper class—this would make him seem a very important suitor, even if he had no money, no legal identity, and could never be seen by day, or in the church. He dressed in a hurry, clean the blood from his face, and then, before the sun could rise, made his way to another sanctuary—a shop attic in the neighbourhood he’d find her in. He needed to get there just as night fell—it passed for more human, but it also made sure Angelus didn’t get there before—he’d be helpless then.

****

Around the same time as Spike found his sanctuary, Drusilla shook awake, her body somehow too stiff to move. For a moment, she felt as though something was in the room, lurking, pressing closer. She’d felt his hands this time—more than hands. Enough that she’d have to confess it, however reluctant to relive. It was a sin to see—a sin to feel the things she’d felt. She didn’t know how to tell them in a way that mattered that this wasn’t what she wanted.

It was the same series of images. Her mother’s head, eyeless, hanging by the hair from her chandelier. Blood staining the floors, Anne whimpering, Christian trying to run with his son. _They never make it._

Another place, latin choral music turning to screams, and throats no longer attached to their owners. Backed into a wall. Some beautiful blonde lady straddling the devil while they watched her. Astride him till they screamed him, then getting up, and sitting back, telling him she wanted to watch. Hands, and claws, and tearing fabric. Her own voice drowning her, begging for an ending. A man. All she knew of him was the eyes—blue, pained eyes.

Her body was sticky—it felt like blood. She took a washcloth, and dipped it in the little basin she kept for the dreams, started slowly to wipe herself off. Each splash of water, taking just a little blood off her body—the one place she’d never purge it off was her hands. She’d almost startled herself with the cold, the feeling of her own hands. Even her own hands were an attack. She couldn’t imagine, for how many times she’d seen and felt, what it would be like.

She opened the window, and looked out at the sky, still dark, and the stars. They didn’t yet have names.

She knew they one day would. She knew that day was soon. There was snow the night her family died, and it had begun to come down in the night. It blanketed the ground in a threat, only one small trail of footprints leading somewhere down the lane. It could be any day, or next year, or never. But every year, the snow came down, and every year, she mourned it.

She got out of bed, despite the hour, into the one patch of moonlight on the wooden floor. She tipped her head forward, tears spilling from her eyes, her lips finding latin words, pronouncing them as though they’d save her. It wasn’t herself she was trying to save. That was long past. If her family could survive this, and the only one suffering for it was her, it was the best she could hope for.

The sun rose, and the house began to awaken, while Drusilla remained there frozen in place, praying for a lot of things: the sun, a saviour, deliverance for her family.

***

The man that knocked on the door wasn’t the sort most normally saw around their neighbourhood. He was _strikingly_ well dressed, even if his clothes seemed tight in places, the faintest bit smaller than he was. His hair was golden, and curled, almost a little tousled. The scar on his eyebrow that should have looked rakish appeared more to be a charming quirk—his blue eyes seemed honest behind his round spectacles. His small smile made his sharp cheekbones feel more like a handsome family resemblance, and less intimidating. William had always made an excellent impression. From the moment they saw him, Mr and Mrs Keeble assumed the stranger on their doorway to be a good man, and likely a very important one. Perhaps, they were concurrently right and wrong.

William could see into their house, or at least into the hall and a staircase behind them. It appeared tight, full of furniture, and shelves lining the wall. A child raced up the stairs, followed in quick succession by another. It was painfully like a home. Like a real place. A pity he was transitory here—just here to stop Angelus and then drift through. The children cemented why it was so necessary. How many would be dead if he left? “Good evening,” he greeted them, “my name is William Pratt, and I’ve come to formally request to begin my courtship with your daughter.”

The man at the door seemed confused. It made him look older than he was, his forehead creasing between his brows. William noticed his hair was beginning to grey. _Age._ It was strange that he was the oldest here, and stranger still that he was unchanging. He’d died nearly a century earlier. Her father tugged at one sleeve of his jacket when he asked, “Cecelia?” concern colouring his voice.

His wife was beside him, in a blue dress with a high neck, and enough pleats to the skirt William was certain she could hardly lift her legs. _How terribly victorian_ , he thought idly, as though regency clothing was any more practical. Her dark brown curls nearly escaped the hat she kept over them when she inclined her head respectfully before saying, “Cecelia is years your senior, sir,” as though asking what defect made him seek a wife who encroached on thirty.

He shook his head, “I’ve not come for Cecelia, I-”

The woman clucked sadly at him, “I’m terribly sorry then, Amelia was married last spring. Beautiful wedding. James looked splendid,” she explained, though she seemed still to watch him. He hoped it meant she was holding out hope he would correct her. Perhaps she was suspicious of anyone she’d never seen in her church. It made sense, with bodies turning up. The hand on their doorstep, if Drusilla hadn’t removed that before they saw.

“I was not here for Amelia either,” He coaxed, trying to make them reach the conclusions he wanted. How many daughters would they try first?

Mr Keeble’s hand tightened on the doorknob and his expression darkened. “Anne is eleven. She’s _not_ come out yet,” he insisted, undoubtedly writing William off as some wealthy pervert who used his money to conceal his indiscretions. If only he knew what William stood to prevent. William didn’t have room to coax them into it. He had to just insist on it, and hope they wouldn’t slam the door when he was more forward.

“Your daughter, _Drusilla,_ as I understand, is nearly nineteen,” he insisted, “I’m terribly sorry for the confusion, sir. I should have made my intentions clear,” he said, fighting the urge to grit his teeth. Not the ways of a gentleman in these times, especially one relying on charisma to overcome how foreign he seemed to them. They just didn’t understand their daughter had a gift—instead she was a dirty secret. He’d spoken with a couple neighbours on his way—she’d never formally come out. They spoke of her in hushed voices—apparently she spent half her time in the church, and seemed rather erratic to some. She did things they couldn’t fathom. Probably because they were human, they were limited, and they weren’t being followed by a sadist hellbent on their total destruction.

Mr Keeble’s face brightened, “Adelia, please send Mary to fetch Drusilla,” he requested, trying not to let his eagerness show on his face. He seemed to have forgotten his insinuations that William was a pervert, amongst other things. William wasn’t in a position to call attention to that. Everyone in the house died horribly if he walked away, or didn’t get in—some sooner than others. Some worse than others.

William still called him on it as the woman—Adelia, rushed to the stairs. “I’m dreadfully sorry for my forwardness, sir, calling on you at this hour, and expecting your time.” He had to know he was part of the problem, letting just anyone in to court her. That was how Angelus planned to get in—except that, as of last night, he’d not wanted her to know the detail, he wanted her to be the one to let him in. Her fault that way.

“No trouble at all, Sir,” Mr Keeble beamed, “if I’d known of your interest in my daughter I’d have found you at the last church supper, and invited you to our table.”

Church. Right. William nodded, “met her at church,” he ad-libbed. “I’ve often seen her there, and lacked the courage to introduce myself. I asked the father who _that angel_ was some days ago, and his word spurred me forth.” He caught the archaism, and hoped it made him seem like he enjoyed the romantic era, and not like he was strange, or out of touch. Worse, like he was actually from it. Perhaps they’d trust his feigned desire for her more if they felt he was as strange as people treated her. “He told me I was right to call her an angel. She was one of the most devout sort. Kind and gentle.”

It was all improvised on what questions he’d asked neighbours, but it did the trick. Her father began to tell him about how she sang in the church’s choir—a beautiful soprano. He knew that. Angelus had mentioned her voice was high. He expected she’d scream higher. William had heard a great deal about her—long hair, blue grey eyes, what her body likely looked like beneath the dresses—which Darla disagreed on. William expected her to be somehow younger than she was, and beautiful in a passive, almost scrapbook-photo way. Like a memory in the present tense— absent form the determination of her story even as it unfolded. Perhaps it was because she was not present in all he’d heard that revolved around her. She was a prop.

_“Can’t_ wear the white, Mary,” he heard a soft voice insist, “wouldn’t be proper. Might get all sticky—then it can’t be the same. No reason to stain all of me yet. Not my time till they all sing.” He didn’t think her parents would have heard. He was a vampire, and he hardly could. That was good. They wouldn’t understand.

A beleaguered maid came down the stairs first, telling Adelia, “she insisted on a mourning dress.”

Adelia looked at her husband, almost panicked, as though she expected William to leave. William assumed she expected her father to have let him in—which he would have, had he not been so inclined to encourage William’s pursuit as to forget the invitation. She’d seen this night hopefully less times than Angelus had discussed it. She expected blood, perhaps thought Angelus was waiting for her, and that fate came to pass today. It was time William go back to believing he could deny the stars, and he’d start here.

She descended the stairs with trepidation, shoes clicking down hardwood until William saw the velvet hem of the dress, and then watched more of her come into view. The broad, flared skirt came together into a corset at her waist, and then a blouse with long, puffed sleeves that belled out around her delicate hands, clasped white knuckled in front of her. Another two steps brought her shoulders into view, her dark hair spilling around her shoulders, loose. It covered her neck better than the up-do’s women in this century favoured.

Her face somehow made everything so different. He’d heard about her face, but never pictured it like this. When he saw it, it was as though the moon rose through surrounding night sky of dark hair and cloth. She seemed as though she glowed with a gentle light that, unlike the sun, wished him no ill. Her chest was still, as though she held a breath that hissed out when she saw him. Her brow furrowed, then her shoulders released, then the rest of her face. Those grey blue eyes took him in as though he were the second coming a miracle. She couldn’t read him in the stars. _He’d surprised her._

William last knew love before he died, when he left home what he didn’t know was the last time. Seventy years ago. He felt as though, starting into her eyes, transfixed, he knew it again a moment. A taste of what it was to be loved. He drank her in gratefully. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The moon in a dark sky, illuminating him. Awakening him.

“I’m at the wrong occasion,” she said to herself, seemingly baffled, looking at him as though he was a particularly cryptic line of poetry and she couldn’t pass what he meant for the story. She reached the bottom of the stairs, and then approached Adelia and her father, her eyes never leaving William. “You aren’t the name writ in the stars tonight?” Her expression darkened, taking him in. She didn’t seem to think she was safe yet. She couldn’t be certain, he realized, whether he was here to save her or just to hurt her first.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Drusilla,” he said, taking a small bow, and wondering if people still did that in 1860. She returned the gesture slowly, her eyes staying on him. He felt as though her eyes could see through his skin, to find what was missing—the soul. “And my immense relief that when I found the courage to deny the stars, I could find you here,” he suggested, “may I come in?”

Her eyes seemed to dissect him, until she strode forward, and offered him a hand, “you may.”


End file.
